I read somewhere that Vista will only ship on OEM pcs, as MS are largely blaming the instability of Windows on 'dodgy' hardware. To install drivers they will need to be digitally signed, similar to when XP says that the driver may not be supported, except that Vista will just say it isnt supported and won't give you the option to carry on installing. Now it seems to me that this has to be one of the worst decisions any company could make, they will close off that Niche market of people that want to build their own, and will probably lose a fair few gamers as well.

How many people are likely to install (for example) MS Office and receive you need at least Windows Vista to continue? And how many people after that are likely to go out and buy a whole new PC just to run that application? IMHO not many.
A lot of gamers probably won't upgrade very quickly either, most hardcore gamers I know have spent a lot of money on getting their machines to a high spec, most of them would rather continue to play games on XP for a while and get the most out of their hardware than to go and buy a new PC and have to reupgrade that.

I think as long as people know there is an alternative, Vista could signal the beginning of a huge change over between Operating Systems. Not necessarily to Linux though undoubtedly there will be at least a few change.

is xp still unstable? i found it a real pain in the backside when i first got it about 2 years ago,but i haven't found it to be so recently as mine doesn't crash (unlike mandriva), on my daughters laptop it has been fine straight out of the box and to be honest both my wife and daughter would rather go out and buy a pc with windows 95 than one with linux on it.perhaps osx is going to be the new windows?
or maybe everything i have said is wrong
paul

No idea, I havent used XP in a while, in fact I havent used Windows at all in a while come to think of it. OSX could well be, especially with guides popping up on the net showing you how to install it on an ordinary PC rather than one of Apples PCs

Wahey !
So MS have finally realised what Apple, Sun, IBM et al figured out years ago... if you want your operating system to be considered truly solid & stable you have to restrict the hardware set it runs on.

Of course, one could speculate that they haven't realised anything; they're just trying to ensure that all Vista machines have hardware DRM installed on them so they can control what you do with your machine...

The thought that occurred to me is that as it stands MS have got a pretty good deal (for them) with the OEM suppliers, in fact upgrade disks and whatnot probably make a lot less revenue per sale for them. Plus Upgrade disks are easier to pirate, because although most OEM suppliers don't do it, it is possible to lock a CD to only install on one of their machines (much like apples intel macs)
Although having played with the beta of Vista, it may just be that they realise how high the minimum specs are compared to a lot of home PCS at the moment, so to try and avoid outrage etc are just going to insist you buy a new pc!

Blåtann wrote:M$ will still be in good business at the time i limp around with rollator.

Many people said the same about IBM and they vanished from the public eye very quickly in the early 90's (ok their profit margin didn't drop but in terms of market share they went from begin the big boys to almost where Sun are now).

MS will disappear as all companies do its just a matter of how and when. The problem MS have is most Linux and Mac users are quite content with their platforms and are unlikely to change to Windows. On the other hand the average Windows user spends most their time complaining about Windows.

Theres likely going to be an attrition battle, I think Windows will lose market share by small amounts with every new release. Not to mention that OSS is growing stronger, companies like Red Hat are seeing 40% increase in their stock value a year. Linux development is faster than Windows development and there is little to choose between them in terms of functionality now. As more 3rd parties develop for Linux (Nero have joined that list now) we will see an acceleration not a slow down.

While Windows has huge loyalty I don't think they have it as much as the other platforms have.

Future computer market will also diverce so that we will see Linux, Mac and Win. in an ever expanding area. By now we already see embedded, cellphones and multimedia as new operating system areas (yes, Linux has been embedded a long time but have Windows been so?).

I agree that Linux is developed faster and i am thrilled to see it.
Not to mention what Linux is on servers.

A couple of years ago Balmer had he´s rants against open source and compared it to cancer; it affects everything it touches.

I´m sure he had some plans to use some open source in Vista and desided to read the license

But OSS developers and distributors are also limited by their own license.
Linux would have a lot better market penetration if distros had all codecs, Flash plugin, ati/nvidea and everything you´d like to install stright from the downloadable distro.

Some distros do have codecs (Mepis, Linspire etc). I think its a case of eventual standardisation. In time somebody will package and sell a codec pack that will be usable across distros (you can still get the dubious free ones obviously). Also not all codecs work in Windows, I always install k-lite to cover this but thats hardly out of the box. WMF works and MP3s half works out of the box in Windows (no ripping is worthless to me). I'm not sure about Macs since I've never used one consistently.

Apparently, the OEM release will be in November, but the boxed product will be released in January, no prices as yet, but 5 different versions from "ultra cutdown cheapo home user", to "premium XPensive professional smartass", with most of the fancy new features (including the Aero desktop ) in the top 3 versions only.

Nigel wrote:
>>
Of course, one could speculate that they haven't realised anything; they're just trying to ensure that all Vista machines have hardware DRM installed on them so they can control what you do with your machine...
>>

In a nut shell (grin).

This "must be in total control" mind set that MS/BillG have ... it's probably their main weakness. And so becomes a good entry point for resistance/over throw efforts.

Personally, I think restricting directx 10 to vista was a bad move, I still run XP on one of my PC's purely for gaming, but I'm not going to fork out for Vista just because I want a newer directX.
If they are restricting Vista to OEM only then it merely makes it more annoying.
With more and more games having native linux ports, or at the least running under wine or cedega, I have a feeling my XP gaming box may end up as Linux too.
(before anyonme comments on 1st post, it isn't, or maybe it is, depends if LXF changed forums since a year or so ago, couldn't even remember my old username let alone password :p )

I am Dyslexic of Borg, resemblance is fertile, your ass will be laminated.

Several hardware vendors have already attempted to lock their users into Windows by simply not releasing drivers for their devices on platforms other than Windows.

The costs of upgrading may well determine the fate of Windows itself. It is bad enough that we are paying in excess of $3.00 for a gallon of gasoline here in the US...and with the price of groceries, education, and transportation going up, I just hope we have enough arms and legs to pay for the costs of upgrading.

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